The present invention relates to a mower. More particularly, the present invention relates to a mower comprising an edge guide.
Commonly, domestic lawn mowers comprise a cutting deck and a rotatable cutting element (such as a blade or length of cord) located below the cutting deck. The cutting element is operable to rotate about a substantially vertical axis in order to cut vegetation (such as grass) beneath the cutting deck. The blade is driven by means of a motor generally mounted above the cutting deck. The cutting deck is commonly mounted on wheels or rollers to enable the mower to be easily moved across a vegetated surface.
For safety purposes, the cutting element is partially enclosed by a housing which surrounds the upper surface and sides of the cutting element to prevent accidental contact between the cutting element and, for example, a user of the mower or items in a garden environment other than vegetation to be cut. Current safety regulation standards in Europe for lawn mower construction require that the side walls of the housing extend at least 3 mm below the plane of the cutting element and that there must be no direct line of sight from externally of the mower to the cutting element in the plane of the blade.
However, this arrangement can be problematic when cutting vegetation growing at, for example, edges of a garden close to a structure such as a fence or wall. This is because, due to the requirement for the cutting element to be partially enclosed, the side walls of the housing must necessarily be spaced from the radially-outermost portion of the cutting element to prevent contact of the cutting element on the housing.
Therefore, in practice, the cutting element cannot extend far enough radially outward to cut the vegetation adjacent the structure due to the required clearance between the cutting element and the side wall of the cutting deck. Furthermore, it is not possible to remove a part of the side wall of the housing to expose the blade for edge cutting without contravening the safety regulations.
Known attempts have been made to overcome these issues. U.S. Pat. No. 3,839,851 relates to a grass guide for a lawn mower. The grass guide comprises a curved deflector which is fitted to vertical side wall of the cutting deck of a lawn mower and which is operable to deflect grass growing adjacent a structure inwardly of the mower housing where it may be cut by a rotating blade of the lawnmower.
EP 1 632 127 B relates to a lawn mower having a vegetation guide provided on an outside edge of the side of the lawn mower body. The vegetation guide is arranged to deflect vegetation towards a cutting blade of the lawn mower.
As set out above, each of the above-disclosed arrangements suffer from the technical problem that, while the respective guides act to deflect vegetation inwardly towards the cutting blade, the vegetation is subsequently pushed over and flattened by the lowermost edge of the side wall of the cutting deck. In most cases, this wall extends below the cutting plane of the blade. Therefore, the vegetation may ultimately be flattened such that it cannot be cut by the blade when the blade passes thereover. An attempt to alleviate this problem by removing a portion of the side wall of the lawn mower body has been proposed. However, such an arrangement cannot meet the necessary safety regulations.
As a result, there is a need in the art to provide a lawn mower operable to cut edge-located vegetation efficiently while still meeting the necessary safety regulations to ensure safe and reliable operation.